Origins of Corpo Jargon

A linguist discusses the origins of cringy corpo jargon.

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I love great old classics like “if you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem”. It makes absolutely no sense out of the corpo win-or-die-trying competitive mindspace.

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I wonder if that’s what’s been making it so hard for me to find a job? I’m one of those older people that doesn’t use that stupid jargon very much so maybe I’m not speaking enough of the language to get hired by people who are younger than me and are still overusing it to assert dominance. :laughing:

In tech it’s just age discrimination. Even before I left tech, I was finding it harder to get interviews. Sure I could omit dates on some things like degrees, but the years of experience was a dead giveaway.

Yep, that was one of the surprising things I learned from having my resume rewritten by “pros”: it’s better to say that you have “(X+2)+” years of experience in whatever they’re asking for than saying you have, say, “30 years experience”. Apparently that translates into either “too expensive” or “wants to come in and take over” or “will be too inflexible”.

I also learned that putting these corpo-speak buzzwords in the resume helps them get past AI filters to some degree as well. Like, this new resume words things in ways that I would never have done if I had written it myself because I don’t use those terms.